Don't wanna be all like them wordy thunderjerks but it's like this:
Erinyes are wraiths, ghosts, whatever. Chicks with wings, associated with Hades. The story jumps around in time, the revelation happened way before the initial action (see last para). He struck a deal with the Erinyes, who asked for his soul. I was trying to imply that the cloaks, to him, sounded like the ghosts (shades) descending on him and taking their price. He made laws so that no other men would ever barter with the underworld.

Also, I think I should have written Gods' as I wanted plural possessive. BUT hey, my explanation is quickly approaching the length of the actual story, ergo I should have written my piece so that others could follow it.

Also, also, the wagon is not greater than the sum of its parts

chillmatic posted:

1. you focused very hard on reproducing an authentic-sounding story to this period(and succeeded very, very well), but focused so much on doing so that you failed to tell an actual, logical narrative.

caught me red handed, you did!

edit: thanks for crits

autism ZX spectrum fucked around with this message at Jun 4, 2013 around 12:44

Don't wanna be all like them wordy thunderjerks but it's like this:
Erinyes are wraiths, ghosts, whatever. Chicks with wings, associated with Hades. The story jumps around in time, the revelation happened way before the initial action (see last para). He struck a deal with the Erinyes, who asked for his soul. I was trying to imply that the cloaks, to him, sounded like the ghosts (shades) descending on him and taking their price. He made laws so that no other men would ever barter with the underworld.

Also, I think I should have written Gods' as I wanted plural possessive. BUT hey, my explanation is quickly approaching the length of the actual story, ergo I should have written my piece so that others could follow it.

Also, also, the wagon is not greater than the sum of its parts

caught me red handed, you did!

edit: thanks for crits

a wagon > than a pile of wood and some wheels lying in a field. I see what you were trying to do with the analogy between men, but this situation is pretty much what the phrase greater than the sum is referring to.

Also part of your problem was you had a dumb reader. I consider myself educated and partially well read, but oracles and supernatural things are definitely a weak area for me.

The Erinyes rode in on trumpet blasts and Gods applause. The Olympiad had begun. Claps turned into dusty thunder-strikes: hooves on stone. I shifted the pebbles on the floor – first a line, then an angle, now round as the seal on my fate. The couriers would be here soon, bearing laurel. My mind’s eye saw the oracled words lit like torches.

I took my skin and drank the lees, sweet wine dripping over the pebbles.

“Sealed with the blood of another,” the infernal messenger once spoke to me, and again now – her voice woven across time’s tapestry. This is really nice. How can I possibly critique a guy who came up with "her voice woven across time's tapestry"?

Outside there was only silence. The King was speaking. A knock at my door; quiet, urgent. I cast the stones across the room, restored them to their natural order: chaotic, lawless, bloodstained. The men crossed the threshold. I stood.

“Draco, God-favoured sage! It is time!” Agathon said.

I embraced them as brothers; knelt when they crowned me with laurel. Outside, the cart was already waiting. The oil-blessed tablets shone in the midday sun; my words burned into their faces. And they were mine, not passed down through quiet coughing of dying men or handed down from vengeful Gods.

I got onto the cart, as did Agathon. The other man walked beside us, arms heavy with wreaths. The trumpets blared, applause erupted once more. The wagon pulled us ahead – a sum of working parts. An axle, a wheel, leather and nails. Each proscribed and measured and crafted from an ideal – should not such be the actions of men?

The crowd was all around us now, the aether filling with sounds. Over this I could hear the Erinyes speak, their infernal tongue there and gone all at once. Anger; but I’d broken no pact.

“Men!” I bellowed, raising my arms, “I give you Law!”

The crowd cheered, euphoric. All went dark. Sounds like flapping of enormous wings, my body weighed down by shades. The Erinyes had come to claim their dues. But it was too late, the deed was done. No longer would a God barter with the soul of man. I collapsed under their weight, yet more still came. I could barely hear the crowd. This made me laugh. I find it really funny that he doesn't just step to the side.

I saw myself in Hades, but I’d known it all before. My eternity was to be a single moment. That night they’d come from Athens, to steal my father’s swine. Scared, I ran from the attackers. I heard my brother’s cries. I’d paid the Gods then, in my brother’s blood, asked for mercy and for vengeance. The Gods had named their price, but I vowed to never let another follow in my path.

I could feel the heat of Hades across the cold darkness of the Styx, it wouldn’t be long now.

I really like this. Probably, because I have a soft spot for anything at all to do with Ancient Greece, and also because, well, a dude was suffocated by clothing and you somehow made that interesting and compelling. You, a much better writer than me, make critiquing hard, because I feel like I should be trying to find something off, but I like it all. The piece is very fast-paced, probably because of the word count, but it doesn't matter, because it works.

Hmm, I guess it could be a tad clearer as to what the Erinyes are, but I was in IRC when you talked about it, so I am not at all confused. Plus, the Google.

Here's my official entry for this week, as the Draco one was just a bonus. It's two for the price of one with me, this week only. Not to be used in conjunction with any other offers. Terms and conditions apply.

Swaying In The Wind
[941 Words]

Never really done much with my life. Never really cared to try. Guess you could say I'm just the type content to lounge in the sun all day and just sway in the wind. And I'm not the only one. Out here that's like our mantra. 'Welcome to Lake Pleasant Park', and underneath: 'monarchiam in ventum' or whatever it is. I can't attest to knowing much but this girl used to hang around me a lot, read her Latin text books, do her school homework. You pick up a thing or two around that.

Because, yeah, me and the rest of us don't like to do much, and aren't sociable by nature, but it's not like we hate the presence of people. It's a rural area, sure, but sunny and titularly pleasant, so there's a nice amount of people coming by. Maybe they hang out, read their books in the sun or look at the stars in the night, or maybe they just walk on by and we watch them silently and let them be on their way.

So naturally when this jackass shows up nobody really thinks much of it at first. Sure, he arrives on the scene in a beat up pick-up truck with an ageing bright red paint job that almost literally screams “hill billy”, That's hillbilly but whatever. It's what's on the inside that counts, right? Aren't we all just water underneath anyway? Every cactus is water, man. Pass me that bong.

The beer and the shotgun are what really tick the boxes on the jackass box. When he swings his legs out of the door he slides the final beer out of a six pack and swigs it, holding his shotgun as he does. When he's finished he throws the parched husk onto the ground, grabs another six pack, carries it round to the back of the truck, and grabs a folded chair.

For a while it seems like maybe he's just going to slam down a few beers sitting in the sun. Foolishly, everyone begins to rationalise the presence of the shotgun, to throw it away. Not that we really could have done anything otherwise. Because they're just a bunch of cacti.

The shooting begins as the sun sets.

It's a shock, but it's nothing terrible at first. The man just seems to be shooting his shotgun into the sky. Perhaps aiming at imaginary birds. As the sky gets darker, however, so does his intent. Eventually he turns the gun on one of my friends, the closest to him, and pulls the trigger. Before I realized these were cacti, I got a little sad when the dude started mowing them down with a shotgun.

This shot, more than those preceding it, echoes a thousand times more intently through the surroundings. Then it's followed by the sickly sound of a cactus slumping to the ground: a soft crackling as it loses its grip on the rest of its body followed by a soft snap; then a heavy dull thud as its pins stick into the ground, no bouncing; then the water begins to leak out, like the bubbling of a small creek. This paragraph has some really excellent description.

Systematically he moves onto the next. His beginner's luck has worn off, replaced by alcohol, and it takes him a few shots to fell the next, and the one after that. As my friends are destroyed one by one I see his path will eventually lead him towards me. And then beyond me. Unless I can stop him. I am forced to wait while the slaughtering takes place, to wait my turn. After I realized he was just cutting down cactus with a shotgun, I kinda wanted to get past all that to the actual death. I can only take so much cactus shooting.

He reaches me, and levels his shotgun, a mean grin on his face. I see my fate in those two black barrels. He shoots and misses. It's then that I realise what I must do.

He reloads and aims again. I watch him intently, standing him down. He has a tell, an easy one. A twitch above his right eye, just before he pulls the trigger. As he does, I sway away from the direction he's pointing. Another miss. He reloads hastily, and only takes a few seconds to aim this time. Again, I sway away. This happens another few times, and the man curses. He swears as he reloads the shotgun. Then he pauses. He smirks, chuckles, and looks at me. He takes a few steps toward me, so he is below me. If the sun was still out, he would be well within my shadow. But it isn't, and we are all in the dark. Is there such a thing as too much showing?

He puts the cold barrel of the gun against my mottled, hard, green skin, between my pins.

He pulls the trigger.

There is a dull, wet explosion, and the man yells, shielding his eyes from the chunks of my meat. Blinded like this, he does not see me begin to fall. He does not see me falling forward, toward him. Lunging forward instead of slumping backward. As he feels my weight he lets out another scream. It echoes, but not as much as the sounds from his gun. It is a much weaker noise altogether.

So I lie here, my pins pinning him to the ground. He is silent and unmoving, and I know my spines have tasted his blood as they feel wet and gooey. I can't move. I can't feel myself sway. For the first time in my life I feel heavy and solid. A trickle is the only thing that tickles my sense. A trickle of water, steadily flowing out of me. We are all water underneath. As the water of life leaves me, and pours into the dry earth, I slowly begin to lose myself. As I fade away I can see the remains of my lost friends, but I can also see those that remaining standing proud around me. I saved them. And now they can keep on swaying.

First off, kudos for writing a story from the POV of a cactus. It took me a bit of time to realize that your POV was, in fact, a cactus, but when I finally did, I thought it was pretty cool. You could probably cut this down a bit. There's a lot of description, and while it is all very good, it bogs the story down. How many cactus were actually out there? Way to make me feel bad when a dude started shooting down cactus, though. Emotion is always a good response when dealing with shot down cactus.

Days before, I heard whispers exchanged that a woman danced under the spell of God Almighty, and that many rose to follow her. An odd tale, but I mouthed a prayer as I had heard it. How could so many be led astray? My heart grew sour with pity.

It was a hot afternoon when they came to our town.

A large throng funneled through the gates, driving straight into the heart of our town, unannounced and without fanfare. Their formation was even and orderly, even if their movements were not. In all the years of my life, I could not have defined their march as dancingWell, yes. Marching and dancing are different. They shambled like monsters out to scare children, their bodies so frighteningly limber as if their bones had turned into supple branches. Their deluded minds screamed of an audience to something horrific. Something beyond even God's love. Was it a marathon taping of Richard Simmons?

Would they stay, or pass through? I held my breath, squinting for the leader.

I saw her, the woman they called Frau Troffea. A witch, if you couldA witch, if you could? Maybe, replace "could" with "would". Whatever former beauty she carried had been consumed by her endless exertion, weeks of dancing laying waste to her body. I wondered how one could go on without food or water or rest, but it seemed that the Devil himself held her tight to his bosomHis heaving bosom, because it takes effort to hold a Dancing Queen. Her eyes were ablaze, and her shrunken frame moved with fervor. She seemed to eclipse her followers in the manner that she carried herself. Faithless. Boundless. Free.

I noticed that her followers could barely follow her movements, some members collapsing as if the spell on them had been lifted. The poor, fallen souls lay still on the dirt, their friends sparing nary a glance as they traipsed around their erstwhile companions.

I dashed to the trail of unmoving bodies and caught the arm of a straggler along the way. He had frozen in mid-step and, upon realizing what he had been doing up until now, fled his companions howling.

"You--what in God's name is this?" I asked.

"Where she goes, I cannot follow anymore," the man wailed, trembling like a sinner on Judgment Day. His body was slick with perspiration, his limp weight pulling at my grip. Did he collapse in the protagonist's arms? I don't really get the use of "limp weight" if he's still pulling.

"How in Heaven did she coerce you to this... madness?" I called after him.

"You call this madness?" The man's eyes bulged. "She is a prophet, preaching the Word with her dance! But I can only catch a fleeting glimpse of Him, whom she follows!"

"Take him to the church and give him something to drink," I told a man standing by. He dragged the exhausted man to shelter.

I left him in the care of other men.<--This sentence and the first half of the next read a little awkward. I scrambled to inspect the others, and the townspeople followed my example. A man of God should lead his flock.

"This one is dead, Father," the tanner, whom I knew as Klaus, declared.

"Merciful Christ," I said.

Maybe some of these people could still be saved. I went to help another. She was a young girl, not even of childbearing age. When I touched her forehead, she spasmed and pointed at the direction of the dancing crowd, which had been creeping away in their unfathomable movement. "The Saviour... we'd been following him. Said he'd lead us to Heaven if we danced as he did. But it's Frau Troffea who could see Him most clearly."

Nonsense, I would have said. But saving this child's life was more important than correcting her of heresy. I shook my head and prayed over the girl. "Give everyone something to drink," I cried through the din. "They are dying of thirst!" My fellow helpers scampered to their homes, returning with wine and beer and cider.I am imagining this is a prayer to God, and God possessed the townspeople and ransacked their homes for alcohol.

As those who still lived were taken to the church, I stood with a prayer on my lips. I must get to Frau Troffea--I must convince her to stop leading these people astray. Not even the town guards had intervened, fearful that the Devil would strike them down if they challenged the wayward dancers. I wove deep into the slow-moving crowd, careful not to disrupt their path.

That was when I saw him. He bore no resemblance to Christ, with his short stature and dark skin. He was dancing like I had seen no man dodance. Every fiber of his person swayed to an imaginary beat, feet deftly balancing him even as he twirled in place. I am imagining Thriller era Michael Jackson.

"Please!" Somehow I knew this man was responsible. Even if he was the Devil himself, I shall not fear.The tense shift is off putting.
"Make them stop!"
My pleas seemed to have reached his ears, for he stopped. He gave me a roguish grin and spoke. I did not understand immediately, but the question was clear--

Do you want to dance?

"No!" I said. "For the love of--"

It's easy. Let me show you.

And he started again. There was no rhyme or rhythm to it, as far as I could tell. He swung his arms in an arc, craned his head in angles, and swept his legs over and around each other. Slowly, I began to see a pattern. It was as if Heaven guided a ray of light into my lowly soul and gifted me understanding.

My foot twitched. My mouth tried to scream in protest, but my conviction broke down, replaced by the warmth of acceptance. Strange music crept into my mind, the crisp pattern of drums and a low melodic thrum accompanying a voice that was primal, passionate, angelic.

Before I knew it, I had joined them.

They called him Saviour. I began to understand why. For did it matter what countenance the Lord wore on Earth? I believed.

Frau Troffea's own dance was but a copy, a dull reflection of true glory. I made my place in the crowd, and began to surpass everyone. My steps astonishing my dancing companions, whose kinetic praises sounded hollow.

One dropped to his knees. "A priest! A priest is with us! He must be Saint Vitus himself!"

Perspiration dripped from all pores of my body. Here I am, moisture leaving my body in droves, when I had tried to slake the thirst of many. But I have never felt free. Soon I shall be dancing beside Christ, who has come to Earth once more. Soon I shall know only the dance.

Well, this was an okay story. I see what you was going for, but again, I think this could use some cutting. Devil Michael Jackson was totally unnecessary and took focus off of the Dancing Queen. For the most part, it was well written, and I'm sure the little things I caught, you'd catch in a rewrite.

This is my first Thunderdome so please, by all means, give me everything you got. I took an honest whack at it so this is representative of where I'm at (And while I think it's good for where I'm at, where I'm at is not good).

I am dying. I lay here recounting this evening’s spectacle to my most trusted and loyal attendant. He sits bedside continuing to listen dutifully. No one would dare tell him of what transpired (for reasons best left unsaid). But as he has been loyal to me to all these years and has shown genuine kindness to my family, I believe he is entitled to the glorious tale of my undoing.

“That’s when I felt it, all four inches of lobster tail ease into my mouth. That's, uh, some interesting imagery. Never before has lobster been so delicious! I remember savoring every ounce of it, slick with butter. I remember the pain of gulping it down,” I said. Haha. You have a thing going on here. Swallow it all down.

"But my king, why did you not stop if it hurt you so?" HUBRIS!

I recall my fingers squeezing a napkin tightly as I surveyed the table of caviar, sauerkraut, smoked herring and, yes, even more lobster. While such pain may be too much to bear for some, it is a delight This bit is unclear. I get what you mean, but you dropped off some words and it could confuse others. It is something I want more of. I get it. Food is his sex. That's what you're trying to say, right?

I replied, “I was hesitant to continue at first, but then I closed my mouth around the first toast point and felt the delicate caviar explode against the roof of my mouth. I almost moaned at the heavenly flavor and feel! Rhythmically feeding in toast point after toast point I became more confident with every bite that tonight was to be the greatest meal of my life.

“As the sweating set in, I realized that I would need ever more chilled champagne to steel my resolve. An ocean poured forth for guests and all at my command! Throughout the evening I would often find my fingers around a champagne flute as though by their own will. An endless stream of the finest kept me going, I’m afraid, until I was disturbingly aware of every square inch of my own stomach. This is probably the grossest meal I've ever read about. You're really selling this.

“Were I not king, someone likely would have stopped me. Were I not king, my dinner sweats would have drawn alerting gazes as I dove into the smoked herring and sauerkraut. Were I any other man I would have stopped. But as I am not, I did not. I pressed on to ever greater heights of indulgence.

“I had eaten past fullness and nausea. With the amount of champagne in my veins I had hardly considered stopping at all. I, in sheer hubris, ordered a dessert of 14 servings of spiced buns in hot milk and consumed them all. Even a king must submit to the laws of nature. A real king shits on nature.

“And it was thus I sealed my fate! I now lay here sweating profusely as the greatest meal of my life slowly works its way back up my neck. I can hardly move my body. I’ve tried to vomit but I can’t seem to anymore; there is something wrong. My legs are becoming numb. It is increasingly difficult to breathe. I have at several points had to cough up food to clear my airway, my friend."

"My king, is there anything which can be done to ease your regrettable suffering?"

“Though I will concede to having erred in dessert, I would have you know that I regret nothing. But if you would, take this down. I would like it recorded for posterity that I, King Adolf Frederick, have lived a life of indolent hedonism. I would like to express my admiration and eternal gratitude for the extraordinary support shown by the Swedish government and people in general, as well as to express total solidarity for those who have known the sufferings of glorious excess. I speak only of my death, as all other affairs are seen to by a living will. Should it become- should it- ”

A painful shock ripples through my abdomen and I can’t breathe anymore.

I can't move anymore. I can't so much as move my eyes. The lace canopy above is becoming an undifferentiated field of white. I can't...

The sounds of distant wind Can anyone ever hear distant wind when they are housed in what I assume is a stone castle? and nearby words are gone. There's a sort of strained thumping and I think- I think someone may be shaking me.

It's my last morning alive, and the first thing I see is Bobby, jerking off on the bed next to me. He holds his big hairy belly so that it doesn't droop onto his you-know-what, and his whole body shakes with the effort of keeping the thing hard.

I can't blame him. I'm stuck to the bed with nylon cords, have been for more than two days. If I were gonna live through this, I'd worry about the horrible itching and burning under my bottom and thighs. As it is, I want to tell him that I don't think the rubber mattress cover will be enough to save the bed, but I can't do that cause of the gag.

I'm in pain. I'm a horrible, bad, awful girl getting off in this trash-filled trailer somewhere in North Carolina. I squirm against the ropes, give a little whimper in hopes of getting Bobby's spirits up.

"I'm gonna give you what you deserve today, you big disgusting bitch." The words are all right, but he sounds like someone reading lines. His emails had been so confident, so sure. But in real life, his voice is reedy and he stumbles over some of the dirtier stuff.

He cleans off my privates with a baby wipe and then starts rutting at me with his half-hearted little thing. I struggle and cry, trying to get him to do like he talked about online. He scratches at me a little, leaves red welts but no broken skin. And he won't put his hands around my throat. Not yet, he keeps saying. I'm gonna die of the drat sepsis before this man chokes me to death.

This thought triggers panic, and I thrash around for real for a while which gets Bobby a little more riled. But his heart's not in it, I can tell. So I do the only thing I can. I pee on him.

It takes him a second or two to notice. He sits back on his heels, sees the puddle growing between us, then looks at me. I smile all innocent around the gag.

Next thing I know I'm under a storm of fists and fingernails and teeth, and his little doodle is big-as-you-please. I guess even the most stoic guy doesn't much like getting peed on.

He's in me, above me, all around me. And stupidly, all I can think of is that Sesame Street song my neiceniece would always sing, Over, Under, Around, and Through. Something about knowing the distance between near and far or--

Smack

Loose teeth, blood behind the gag. I come back to reality, realize that I accidentally took myself away from the violence. And just when things were getting good...

Bobby pulls out and waddles naked out into the trailer's trash-filled front room. I moan in protest, thinking I've killed the mood. But now he's rustling around, looking for something. I hope it's the rope, then I hate myself for hoping it's the rope, then I feel the deep-hot-sticky-dirty-dark feeling, the feeling people mean when they say gently caress with the ugly 'f' sound and the hard K at the end and I want the rope.

I take in the tiny bedroom, the bare walls and the one bookshelf stacked with hundreds of floppy disks with labels like Real Amateur Neighbors - Pics and Dirtyslut.txt. The room is a more intimate partner than Bobby in some ways, since it's the last place I'll ever see. And even when I'm gone, it'll always be that room.

The empty walls makes me think of movie credits scrolling on an empty black background. There's no song playing to tell me this is the end of my life, just the quiet and the grey and the smell of me n' Bobby in the air.

Here he is now, Bobby with the rope in his hands and dark things in his eyes. The little nubbin peaking out from under his big bear belly is dark too, the darkest purple I ever saw it. He's going to kill me. He's going to kill me. I moan and shake my head and strain against the nylon cords. He's going to kill me.

I don't want to die. But I want Bobby to kill me.

He gets back into position, gut resting on my abdomen, skin stuck together by sweat. He holds the rope taughttaut in from of him as he ruts at me, letting me see it before it goes around my neck

oh god.

The room is clear, crystal clear. I can see everything, smell everything, feel everything.

Oh god I'm

Yes

No

My life in front of me, just moments of it left now

The rope

Bobby

The rope

Tighter and tighter

Not yet

not yet

I'm not there yet, but he's emptying himself out, and his balls are as empty as his eyes but I'm not there yet

and now black spots are swirling in from the corners of my eyes and my face feels like it's swelling up, but I'm not there yet, I'm not gonna get off

Not yet Bobby

not yet

I didn't get

This was both an awful and good story. Good in that it's masterfully told. Awful in that it made me feel like I'm being murdered by a fat dude. Good work. Man, I don't even know what else to say other than this has my vote for this week's winner and it makes me feel kinda dirty that it does.

If you put it that way, yeah, BUT what about : each piece of the wagon as important as the whole? Each board cut, planed, sanded and assembled with care. Everything the result of some ideal artisan and each as crucial as the other. A wagon doesn't simply pop into existence, it's carefully planned and well thought out. It's a dumb argument, I know, but it's mine god dammit.

also JONASSALK thank you very much for the kind words BUT this isn't the FRIENDERDOME. I give you until tomorrow evening to re-crit my piece and put in at least 3 negative things or else we're brawling.

edit: I'm not done sperging about wagons. In Plato's Republic, Socrates argues that the least part of something is as integral as the greatest. The argument is about justice and the soul of man, but I feel the logic can carry over. Let's assume that every part of the wagon is integral, which I don't think is too big a stretch. If even the smallest of these pieces is made by a careless artisan it can ruin the wagon, and the entire wagon will be judged by the failure of a single piece. His argument has a few caveats about the nature of man, but that would only really apply to more complicated wagons. Draco's Laws were established before the great thinkers of Greece, and I take the liberty of assuming that the modes of thinking were present in some form. Therefore I feel as though I can say that the wagon is no greater than the sum of its parts.

autism ZX spectrum fucked around with this message at Jun 4, 2013 around 22:44

gently caress, this was not easy. Crabrock's flash rule wasn't that difficult, as "a sailor forgetting something" is why Kendrick died in the first place, but Martello's certainly required a bit of creative thinking. I feel absolutely awful about the quality, but it's mostly mitigated by the fact I produced something. So I give you the tale of an American sea captain and his (fictionalized) skanky daughter.

Reise, Reise (666 words)

“What do you mean you forgot?”

The cabin boy withers under my gaze, fingers knitted tightly together. “ ‘M sorry, Cap’n. I just found yer letter in my bunk. It never went out with the rest of ‘em.” Tears well in his eyes. “I’ll fix it! I’ll take a dinghy an—” Why does James speak like Smee?

I raise a hand for silence, then lay it on the boy’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, James. I’ll likely reach home before it does. Return to your duties."

James stiffens like a board and salutes. “Aye, Cap’n.” He scampers below deck. With a heavy sigh, I lean against the railing. Of all the letters for him to forget!It might just be me, but that exclamation point feels weird. You should toss it overboard! My wife, Huldah, had written to me with worrisome news about the children. Well, the child. John Jr. was a man now, commander of his very own ship. But Heidi... She had been born during my idle years, that oh-so-brief period between the war and when I took command of the Discovery. She was such a beautiful baby, all blue eyes and smiles. The lass was always thrilled when I returned and miserable when I left her once more. However, my time away seems to have taken its toll. Heidi has forsaken her chores and, most frighteningly You should probably hang that adverb from the mizzenmast., become a regular down at the docks. “You of all people should know what sailors are like with young ladies,” Huldah wrote. Do I smell a prequel?

Oh, I do. Primal rage swells in my gut, and I grip the rail until my knuckles turn white. It’s all I can do to stop myself from striking the nearest deckhand. Granted, that wouldn’t make me a better father, but I’d sure as hell feel better. So, he'll strike an innocent deckhand, because he thinks his daughter might be drowning at the docks, but he won't hit a cabin boy for failing to do his duty? Peculiar.

“Captain?” I turn to face John Howel. One couldn’t ask for a finer clerk.Unless you show us why Howel is a fine clerk this line is totally unnecessary. “Kalanikūpule gifted us with a few roast pigs. Says it’s the least he could do.” His brow furrows. “Something the matter?”

“We’re not eating hardtack But my daughter is. Dammit. What could possibly be the matter?” I force a smile. “Fetch the other officers.”

Within minutes, my men surround the table. Their eyes gleam with anticipation. Howel says grace, his prayer made all the more elegant by its brevity, and I start to carve the first boar. This smell must torment the enlisted men. They’ll get their share soon enough. I pick at my own plate, only eating when I catch Howel’s eye. The Washington would return to Massachusetts in a few months’ time. I could be a father to Heidi again but, Lord have mercy, what would I even say to her? He could probably tell her about his adventures eating boar while the enlisted men gather around to watch. Nothing more heroic than fanning the flames of animosity.

“Captain!” We already know it's a cry, because you tell us in the next sentence. The lookout’s cry<--see pierces my thoughts. “The Jackal’s off our starboard bow!”

Excellent. Captain Gordon and his men were indispensable in our mission to defend Fair Haven from the rebels. I wipe grease from my mouth and bark<--If I had a dollar for every time a sea captain barked., “Ready all guns for a salute!” My bosun repeats the order, and the men scramble to comply.

The Washington rocks from the cannons’ force, which does little to impede my officers’ appetites. Smoke rises from the water. Its acrid tang fills my nostrils as I close my eyes. I hear the explosions from the Jackal’s guns, as well as... whistles? I open my eyes. A dozen slugs scream through the air.

My God.

Deckhands scramble for cover. Even a few officers dive under the table Was it customary for officers to take cannonballs to the gut? You make this act of self preservation seem unheard of. Pointless, really. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. I forge an expression of calm. “So, gentlemen,” I ask, “who thinks we should fire back?” Nervous laughter escapes a few men, then screams.

The world explodes in agony. I strike my head against the table as I fall. No more pain. Good. Wait, not good. Why can’t I move my left arm? Oh. Don’t have one Not gonna lie. I love his stoicism right after finding out he has no left arm. "It was only getting in the way," says Captain Arm-Hook. The world spins, and I’m staring up into Howel’s face. He’s shouting, but I can’t understand. My ears are stuffed with cotton. Blood gushes from my throat as I try to speak, to tell Howel to take care of my girls. He nods grimly. Lord, I hope that means he understands.

I close my eyes, and the darkness overwhelms me.

I think you have a pretty interesting story here. Too bad, it's buried beneath a whole lot of maritime cliche. It was like watching a Douglas Fairbanks movie without any of the swordplay. That's not something I ever want to do. Also, you have two too many exclamation points. In the prequel can we get a tender love scene between Captain Kendrick and Howel?

The concrete apron is crawling with technicians. I plant my feet, glance at Rostropov. He snaps to attention.

“Air Marshall! Shall I obtain seating for you! I will do so!” Talk about over eager. Off he goes. I dismiss him from my attention and devote it instead to the delightful protrusion that is my rocket. The R-16 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. Skin of metal, payload of righteous retribution. Bedevilled by delays, enshrouded by failure, but rising above it all. And soon to rise above even that, on a pillar of glory. How could the rocket rise higher than above it all? Wouldn't that just be above it all?

I HAVE THERAPISED MYSELF INTO NARCOSIS

The words fly into my head and I dismiss them with the ease of habit. I have received these regular communiqués since I had my accident when I was seven years old at my grandmother's dacha. They take the form of stentorian pronouncements, as though from a rich-bearded Patriarch, and are generally nonsensical. Somebody put this loon in charge of a rocket?

Rostropov arrives with a chair in his hands. At his side is Yangel. My lip curls, unbidden. We have worked closely before but I am coming to doubt his commitment.

"Comrade Air Marshal I entreat you to -" the engineer begins. I hold up my hand.

"No," I say. I sit down on my chair. Foolish and brave, he continues. “But Comrade the Devil’s Venom is profoundly – “

I favour him with my most heavy-lidded of glances. “Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine. Hypergolic. Vivaciously reactive. I am familiar with its properties, but perhaps you have new information for me?” He stares, a rabbit hypnotized by its predator.

COWARDS DIE A THOUSAND DEATHS

I allow myself a smile at this one, sometimes my interior interlocutor can display wit. I wave my hand at him. “Comrade Kruschev has been given my personal assurances. The launch will proceed, Technician. On time.”

He scuttles off, insectlike, and I dismiss him from my mind. Although the passage of years has erased much, I can remember the garden shed at the dacha with total clarity. I remember the crawling mass of termites I found by moving an old pot of weedkiller, the rich chemical smell.

Rostropov leans down, mutters in my ear. “There may be some risk, sir. Comrade Yangel has been recommending delay, perhaps you should withdraw to the observation post?”

I say nothing. The rocket is surrounded by tenders of webbed steel that are being winched back to give it space to fly. It is a lumberingly balletic process. I feel an ache in my heart that is unsuitable to be turned into words.Then lets not put it into words.

CORRECTION REQUIRES ERROR

I shake my head. “My presence will encourage the men. Look how they scurry Rostropov. Anyway, the launch is not scheduled for two hours yet.”

The insects I uncovered beneath the rotten wood in the garden shed had scurried, busy doing the bidding of the hive. I had gazed, fascinated, groped for a bottle of DDT. To find out what would happen. The cap was stiff and took both hands to open. I had taken my steadying hand off the tower of old pots and bottles to do it.

The tenders have retracted fully. I imagine the nitric acid that saturates the valves of my rocket, imagine its roiling ire. It seeks the spark that will transform it into fire. I want the rocket to launch now. Impatient, I have always been impatient.

“Mitrofan,” Kruschev had grumbled down the crackling line. “This needs to work. The Americans are getting cocky. Cockier. Cocks of the yard.” Yeah, I have no idea what "Cocks of the yard is supposed to mean and it's kinda awkward to read. It can go. He was probably drunk, it was late. I had assured him that the rocket would launch. There was a fervency to my tone as I did so which surprised me. Of course things had gone wrong, the engine had been flooded early, but things always went wrong. Caution is just the slower route to failure. Courage is the rocket’s path. To light a fire and rise upon it to the sky, that is the way.

“Rostropov,” I say, “tell me again of the fuel error.” I have settled my eyes on Yangel, who is having animated conversation with one of the other engineers by one of the remote consoles fifty meters away. His voice is raised, though I cannot hear what he is saying.

WE FALL THROUGH LIGHT INTO SHADOW

“Sir. The pyrotechnic membranes were ruptured. The combustion chamber has been filled with the Devil’s – with the fuel. Pitting and corrosion will render the rocket inoperable by tomorrow. Aborting the launch was considered, and rejected.” I can tell he is at attention behind me. Striving towards perfect erectness, like my rocket.What's up with all the dicks? Yangel has stomped off, back towards the command bunker. Probably to have a smoke; I have chosen to allow this breach of regulations. Men need their outlets.

My last memory of the shed was the splash of acrid liquid falling upon the termites. The insects curling up in death. Then, a flash of light as the heavy pots fell from the table onto my head. I had been discovered some hours later, still unconscious. The poison gave me a cough that lasted for months, the blow gifted me with an internal onlooker, a kibitzer as a Jew might say.

“Rostropov,” I say. “I will inspect the rocket more closely.” I stand, stride towards it over the fuel-stained concrete. My medals jingle. The sun is hot above. A hiss of vapour is issuing from a port halfway up the rocket. One of the men on the apron is shouting, pointing. Rostropov is behind me, keeping pace.

We are insects, all of us. Scurrying at the bidding of the hive. But we aspire, we rise. We craft our pillars of flame and ride them to the sky. I know this, Comrade Kruschev knows this, even poor cowardly Yangel knows this.

WE BRING THE SUN AMONGST US TO BETTER PRAISE IT

I nod, laugh. The jet vapor has become a cloud and there is a whine coming from the rocket, this pillar, this sculpture of metal and willpower. It is splendid. We are splendid. I turn to Rostropov to note this, and see him catch fire. I cannot hear anything. I raise my hand to him; it is on fire. I can hear nothing. We are on fire, a cloud of flame all around. My legs fail me and I fall.

My eyes are flame. The ground is fire. I curl up, weeping tears of fire. The sky is obscured with smoke, and flame. The concrete is black. The world is black.

WE CAN DO NO OTHER

Well, that was another great entry. And again, I am really at a loss for any sort of real critiques. Other than cutting one line that I personally don't like, I don't know what to say. Maybe, I'm too nice, but I think this is fine enough that I can't really find anything wrong with it. You also managed to smash a lot of dicks into the story.

Homer Collyer: 1947, blind and paralyzed, died of starvation several days after his brother killed by his own boobytraps

Words: 500

EDIT: And i just realized this is not first person! I'm loving dumb. Christ.

Keep Digging

Homer Collyer was sure Langley, his brother, was still alive. That belief kept him crawling and digging through the stacks of every worldly possession they owned. The biting hunger had turned to just constant dull bloating. He put his hands out, feeling for the columns of books, papers and boxes. Each drag from his muscular shoulders just shifted the mess from one side to the other, like a snake burrowing in the sand.

Despite the apartment only being a two bedroom, in Manhattan no less, Homer’s decrepit legs made moving about the apartment monumental. The towers of boxes and furniture made the labyrinthine tunnels Langley used to navigate the apartment now the most insidious of the traps still in the apartment. Homer was lost, he knew for certain. Since the faint cries of his brother had faded, had no other landmark to guide himself.

There was some comfort in the fact that no matter where you were in the apartment, there would always be something to lean your back against. Homer laughed a little to himself as he felt the uneven stacks of newsprint fold up and down his back. Langley had collected them for the day when Homer’s eyesight returned. They both knew that would never happen, the doctor had said as much in no kind words.

The darkness, and losing his legs to the poison of his own body, had long since tempered Homer against the madness. Langley had not been as fortunate. Always more traps. Wire traps, bear traps and avalanche traps, all to stop kids from throwing rocks through the windows. From the outside. Oh Langley, Homer thought. No matter the odds, Homer vowed to keep his wits about him. Find humor in things, he thought. Like how little he had defecated himself in the absence of food or assistance.

Giggles wracked his sides, but he had to keep quiet. Langley would scold him thoroughly if he heard him. Laughing, at a time like this, Homer mimed the chastising brother. Homer shook his head, letting his mouth hang open. The sound of flapping cheeks made him smile, but he had to get back to work.

His hands seized, curling in on themselves. One last spiteful rheumatoid spasm to let him know it was time to take a break. Homer righted himself using his forearms, and dragged his legs in front of him. Putting each gnarled fist under a knee, he drew them closer to himself for support. Just a quick respite, Homer thought. He put his head down on his knees, hands locked together. A pizza, Homer thought about, a pizza is what I would like when I find Langley, he will owe it to me. Tears wettedwet Homer’s legs, You sure those are tears? that he could neither feel, nor obscure his dead eyes. A pizza, with mushrooms, I don’t care that he doesn’t like them.

Well this was a nice third person tearjerker. My big crit is that it's in the third person. Rewrite the entirety of it in the first person, while I go wipe my legs. I seem to have pissed myself.

I hope I am not coming across as some sort of lazy rear end in a top hat. A lot of the stories I was given to judge were written by very good writers, and I am legitimately at a loss for negatives, probably, because I have a bad eye for this sort of thing. Looks like me and Nubile Hillock are gonna have a brawl on our hands.

The Erinyes rode in on trumpet blasts and Gods applause. The Olympiad had begun. Claps turned into dusty thunder-strikes: hooves on stone. I shifted the pebbles on the floor – first a line, then an angle, now round as the seal on my fate. The couriers would be here soon, bearing laurel. My mind’s eye saw the oracled words lit like torches.

I took my skin and drank the lees, sweet wine dripping over the pebbles.

“Sealed with the blood of another,” the infernal messenger once spoke to me, and again now – her voice woven across time’s tapestry.blah blah blah

Outside there was only silence. The King was speaking. A knock at my door; quiet, urgent. I cast the stones across the room, restored them to their natural order: chaotic, lawless, bloodstained. A little repetitive with the sentence structure, and though this might have been intentional I don't think it works. The men (what men??)crossed the threshold. I stood.

“Draco, God-favoured sage! It is time!” Agathon said. Is Agathon the king?

I embraced them as brothers; knelt when they crowned me with laurel. Outside, the cart was already waiting. The oil-blessed tablets shone in the midday sun; my words burned into their faces. And they were mine, not passed down through quiet coughing of dying men or handed down from vengeful Gods. I see too many semicolons in this piece.

I got onto the cart, as did Agathon. The other man walked beside us, arms heavy with wreaths. The trumpets blared, applause erupted once more. The wagon pulled us ahead – a sum of working parts. An axle, a wheel, leather and nails. Each proscribed and measured and crafted from an ideal – should not such be the actions of men?

The crowd was all around us now, the aether filling with sounds. Over this I could hear the Erinyes speak, their infernal tongue there and gone all at once. Anger; but I’d broken no pact.

“Men!” I bellowed, raising my arms, “I give you Law!”

The crowd cheered, euphoric. All went dark. Sounds like flapping of enormous wings, my body weighed down by shades. The Erinyes had come to claim their dues. But it was too late, the deed was done. No longer would a God barter with the soul of man. I collapsed under their weight, yet more still came. I could barely hear the crowd.

I saw myself in Hades, but I’d known it all before. My eternity was to be a single moment. That night they’d come from Athens, to steal my father’s swine. Scared, I ran from the attackers. I heard my brother’s cries. I’d paid the Gods then, in my brother’s blood, asked for mercy and for vengeance. The Gods had named their price, but I vowed to never let another follow in my path.

I could feelfelt the heat of Hades was the Greek underworld actually hot? across the cold darkness of the Styx ,.It wouldn’t be long now.

This is well written technically (though could use fewer semicolons), but I just don't have enough to know what is happening. Who are the men? Who is the king? Who is the crowd? What the hell happens in the course of this vignette? Though it does make me interested to find out more about this story, so that's certainly a plus.

There's truth in violence. Like a sea craft knowing itself against the irrational proportion of water pressing up against it. A bobbing on waves or rested in a calm flat plane.

The articles of anger, the twitches of muscle, the stares, aggressive body posture; the seascape. And once a mariner, once of vessel, having tasted salty sweet blood in the throat, blown by the sweep of adrenaline found in the tender offering of knuckles and kneecaps and elbows and headbutts, the body remembers. Always.

But I'd been laid up. Out of sorts, my biceps gone to flab, my chest hollowed and soft from smoking days away horizontal on a calico couch in front of boozy binged Netflix and Xbox. The body doesn't forget, but weakness ebbs brain’s memory. First months of new birth puking sea-legs across the bow rail.

This was a night like that. I wasn't smelling the air, reading the clouds for storm signs. My mind had buried the shellback roots. Smudged them out in a slow miasmic wilting of soft living in the company of men prone to settling differences with a curt email or a bicker.

But back at sea I was, and opposite me some younger clone of myself. Tall, shaven headed, jumped up with a little sidekick. He almost had the same pompous gait as my former sidekick. The brazen tiny that pushes all the buttons as you glide into harbor, landing in the joy of a bustling port with all the debauched fixings. The crunch of bloody inward turned teeth vibrating signals through arm bone, the lips turned inside out in cough syrupy dolloped mess.

He sidled along me in the unlit parking lot behind the bar row, his impish minion spurring the tryst. "Is this where all the college boys go?", the imp hailed to me.

What signal was I sending? Did they not see my tattoos of distant harbors? The scorched brutality invisible to all but those within the coded context? The hangdog shoulders. The slow roll. How would they dare approach so menacing with intention upon a dark ground?

But I found myself ill prepared. Soft. My body without it's core. The heart of fighting, the tinge of madness that allowed adjudication. I scampered into the nearest bar through the backdoor without reply.

Soon, within a short number of liquid exchanges, I saw them. The one offered as contestant occasionally pulsing in my direction. He'd decided already. And he carried the secret, the one all those lathed in cruel ruckus must possess. Something inside compressed down to a speck of explosive hatred. That is all that mattered in a fight. The secret. The weight of what one carried inside. But that too, I couldn't find. I was weak, flapping.

I left by the front door, flicked into the next bar, left out their back, walked a block, back into the back of a third bar, and sat down to forget the pair. Daito, shoto. Fat Man, Little Boy.

I dogged my way through a pile of drinks. Burning money against the night like setting matches to orphanages. Gobbling the smoke of lost futures into my wraith lungs, stripping the cellular matter of their walls like heated lead paint until nothing bared but the rattling husks. The truth of death. Was that my secret?

I didn't know. Didn't care. I'd forgotten the burger with a side fries, now focused simply on a vision of deconstruction. Destruction. Fantasies of ditch sleeping, of driving boosted cars into light poles, draped across the wheel and sharded glass sheet on crumpled hood. The avalanche of alcohol piling on me. The minutes cutting through black closed shutters landing on occasional islands of brightness and sound. A place where internals fall into the skin as far is it will stretch. Until deep AM. Until I was evacuated by the clocks closing minute, discarded to the street.

Downhill I trundled. Trundled. Scraped like a claw along the concrete. An emptied sea leaving only a bottomed plane of limey grit and dead calcified organic gristle. I saw them coming. I knew them, rejoined the story of my twin.

Then the little one slapped the poo poo out me. He did it as a favor, I knew, and I welcomed his palm's embrace of kindness, kissed it’s preventing a swift demolition at the energies of my shipmate.

Awash in thanks, I grabbed Panza's face and tore in, hanging on like a roller coaster, trying to force my fingers' inside. As I dug, my second brain rose, the reptilian nub, jutted up, found itself over a silent dominion of black as it wails... as he wails. Shrieks the girlish tones of murdering.

And the large meat hammers fell on my skull. From behind as we struggled as one man from three. We wrangled the harsh sea. With each decibel and octave of my victims bawl, joy rushed up in a column and lifted my face with widening smile. I could feel flesh passing the deformation point. Could feel veinal structures split at intersections.

The pounding continued, and with it, the unlocking. The revival. The secret within resurrected, that much more concentrated, explosive for its dormancy, lurching forward. We were at full sail. And the secret said, “You must fall.”

So I did. Grabbing my fellow shipman by headlock, nestling his shorn orb as cargo, I torqued my feet into the air, and let gravity join us with his cabin boy, landing in the embrace of sidewalk, bone and blood, where we lay unfettered, still, and full of truth.

(edit: i fixed a misspelled word... loving shoot me.)

twinkle cave fucked around with this message at Jun 5, 2013 around 09:50

"It's just the two of us tonight," I say to the moon as I take my seat on the weathered old stump by the riverside. In my youth it had been a mighty oak, tall and proud, and I spent many leisurely days drinking in its shade, surrounded by friends. Now its majesty is long gone, and it serves only as a seat for a lonely old man.

It is a peaceful night, the silence broken only by the crickets and the sound of wine being poured into a cup. Good wine, fit for the emperor himself, not the poorly made local varietyI know this sentence has a parenthetical, but it reads weird to me. In my head it sounds like you're saying the wine is fit for the emperor but it's not fit for the local variety.

"I got this in the capital," I tell the moon. She's quiet, of course, but I like that about her. I have words enough for us both.

"One of the ministers gave it to me. Said he liked my poems, wanted to show his appreciation." I take a drink, and take a moment to feel the taste. It doesn't feel so different from what they make here, but perhaps my sense of taste has dulled with age.

"He told me to save it for a special occasion. My wedding, perhaps, or the birth of my first son."

Good advice, that. Wouldn't want to waste something so expensive on small festivities. I drain the cup and fill it again, raising a toast to my heavenly companion.

"Have I ever told you how I got sent away from the court?"

The moon already knows, for she can see everything, but I decide to tell her anyway. It's a short enough tale, made shorter still by the fog of the many years passed since then. A woman, an obsession, a thousand poems in her honor. A jealous eunuch with poisoned words, and praise mistaken for scorn. An emperor who cares for his consort, and a reluctant farewell.

"That's all there was to it," I tell the moon when the story is done. "A misunderstanding."

The moon climbs higher and higher, and I drink with her until there is nothing left to drink. She is at the peak of her journey, and I have to bend my neck to look at her.

"Maybe it was for the best," I tell her then. The words come slowly through the haze of the wine. "Can't even remember any of my friends from back then. Must have had some, though."

The one who gave me the wine, I must have been friends with him. There would have been other artists, and surely I knew some of them. Not a single face comes to mind, though, except the woman's, and her I admired from afar. There's something off here that makes this whole sentence read like dialogue and that makes the next piece of dialogue feel weird. Almost like it's clashing with the line above it.

"Would've gotten a wife, if I'd stayed. One of those friends would have found me one, I'm sure."

I try to fill my cup again, forgetting for a moment that there's nothing left.

"If I'd had a wedding, I would've had to drink this wine," I say, looking up at the moon again. "And then you and I couldn't have had this nice night together, could we?"

Never before have I seen the moon so full, so bright. She dominates the sky, drowning the world below in her pale light, surpassing the mountains and the stars in a way the sun could never hope to match. She is sublime.

I close my eyes, fearful of being blinded by her beauty.

"You know, I've never written about you. Don't know if I could. You're too distant, unreachable to mortal men up there in the heavens."

The wind, a breeze so gentle I had not noticed its presence, stops. The crickets have tired of making their music, and it feels as though the night itself is listening to me, waiting with bated breath for what I will say next.

"Perhaps you could come down here for a little while?"

A silly request from a silly old man. But when I open my eyes I see her, not above me but in front, in the middle of the river. I half fear it is a mirage brought on by the drink, and I don't dare take my eyes off her. I stumble back to my boat, nearly tripping over my own feet as I push it out and climb in. I row and row until my arms are as heavy as mountains, but the moon will not let me reach her. She swims away as I approach, always just out of reach.

I see. She must want me to swim to her, then. I'm exhausted, but she is not far. I can manage that distance.

First, I want to applaud your not actually showing the death. That was much more effective than simply saying "And then I kissed her and drowned." That said, I don't really like this story. Not that it is bad or anything. I just find it to be a tad boring. When it's not being boring, it's saying things like I take a drink, and take a moment to feel the taste. Huh? How can you feel the taste? I'm pretty sure you mean savor it.

The dialogue doesn't really work for me either. It's a bit too on the nose.

This is as done as it's ever gonna be. I took a bit of artistic license but the story's practically a myth anyway. Based on the story of Philitas of Cos.

The Liar's Paradox
1223 Words

Hunger has become a constant. Having spread outwards from my stomach like a jot of wine blooms in water, it permeates my body. My toes as much as much as my tongue pine for the flatbread that lies beside me in a wicker basket. Why would his toes want the bread? Some kind of stress relief trick, like in Die Hard? Fists with your toes? It was brought for me to eat, but I shall not eat it.

Balanced on the brink of the dirt cliff by the river, leant out just slightly over the water, stands an old plane tree. When I need to think, I lie under its limbs with my back to its bark. I am nestled in its shade. Its leaves whisper to the wind. Below, the glistening waterway murmurs deeply. Not a fan of this adverb.

To my right stretches my garden; at the foot of it stands my house. Beyond its white geometry, swollen hills dotted with sheep and criss-crossed with drystone walls rise lazily into the pinch of blue mountains I'm having difficulty envisioning what "swollen hills rising lazily into a pinch of blue mountains" are supposed to look like, their sides spattered with snow, their every crinkle accentuated by the low orange light of the sun. The river is shallow and clear. Small brown fish hover above its rocky bottom. Above the surface, C-shaped swallows swoop at the hanging clouds of flies. This paragraph is a rainbow of colors!

Think about this: if a man says 'I am lying', is he telling the truth? Is that an impossible question? It seems that way. It's a paradox.

There are swallows over the garden, too. One dives past me so close that if I was quick enough I could have grabbed it.

Hermesianax is over by the house again. He picks his way through the grass with his distinctive care.

“It makes perfect sense. It's a fact of life that comes to you with age. One day, my boy, you'll understand.”

“I pray to Zeus that I don't,” he says. “Look, Philitas,seems like an anachronistic expression when did you last eat? In this past week have you eaten anything? Anything at all?”

I watch the swallows on the river to avoid his gaze.

The answer is no. It's been longer than a week. The morning after the last full moon he came to me here with a flatbread in a basket and some water. I didn't see him approach, so intensely was I re-evaluating the subtleties of a long-passed argument. So subtle I can't remember what it was even about... I told him I was too busy thinking to eat, and he told me that was impossible.

“It's perfectly possible,” I said, “and if you give me some quiet I'll show you how it's done.”

Hermesianax chuckled and set the basket down at the base of the tree. When he came back that evening, it hadn't moved. Is this from the morning after the last full moon or is it taking place in the "now" of your narrative?

“How can you have been too busy thinking to eat for an entire day?”

“Fairly easily, actually,” I said. “You know, it happens all the time.”

He shook his head. “There are times when I don't believe you.”

Since that day I have eaten nothing. Rethink how you relate this anecdote/backstory, or if it's even necessary. Now, where the colour has run from the eastern sky, a silver disk looms over the mountains. The full moon is back. It has been twenty-nine days since I last touched food. In that time, the flesh has melted from my shoulders and chest. Starvation has whittled my legs and arms into broom handles.Good rhythm to these last sentences.

It hurts.

“Philitas!”

“What?”

“I said, when did you last eat?”

“That's nothing to do with you?” This isn't a question, is it?

“Yes it is!”

“How is it?”

“Because you're my friend.”

“Hermesianax,” I say, “a good friend respects his friends' wishes.”

Hermesianax stands and looks down at me, his dark eyes shimmering wetly.barf “A great friend stops you when you're being retarded.” Another dumb anachronism. He takes a couple of steps away then turns back. “But maybe I'm just not that great a friend.”

“If you're leaving,” I tell him, “take that loving bread with you.”

He ignores me. I throw it at him. It's heavy in my palm. It bounces weakly off his back and lands in the grass.
Maybe I could eat the bread when no one would see and say I chucked it in the river. Maybe I could sneak into the house and get something from the cellar without the servants noticing.

When I'm sure he's gone, I attempt to stand. I can't. My heels press into the dirt, but the muscles in my legs no longer have the strength to get me upright. The bread landed too far away for me to reach. I don't have the energy to crawl for it. I collapse backwards into the tree's embrace and let the night engulf my body and then my mind.

When I awake, Hermesianax is again standing over me. The morning sunlight slips through his blonde hair. He is holding a skin of water and another flat bread.

“Look who came back,” I say. My voice is weak and unfamiliar, barely audible.

“Are you going to eat now?”

“Still thinking.”

“You were asleep!”

“Concentrating.”

“Do you want me to tear the bread for you? I can help you eat it.”

He sits down beside me and tears off a chunk. He holds it out to me. I look at it, and then at him.

“When I'm done I can eat it myself. Let me be. This is important.”

His face looks like I punched it.

“I get it, you know,” he says, standing up again, dropping the bread. “I do. It's completely stupid, but I get it. I get what you're doing.”

“Don't know what you're on about. Leave me alone.”

He paws at his cheek with the back of his hand. He grits his teeth. He takes a step away and a step back. He punches the tree so hard its trunk shifts against my spine and blood falls from his fingers to the grass.

He looks me in the eyes. His face is quivering and red. “You stubborn old gently caress,” he says. Now he leaves me, cradling his right hand in his left.

Hermesianax may get what the old man is on about, but I don't. I think this needed some additional work to bring out whatever theme you were going for here. As it is, it's repetitive and the dialogue is not very believable or interesting. I would like to know more about the philosophical underpinnings, and if there are none, then a little insight into Philitas' mindset would have been welcome.

When a man’s about to kill himself with playing cards he spares a few considerations to what people will say. The jokes tell themselves. Got dealt a bad hand. Wasn’t playing with a full deck. Guess he decided to fold. I suppose I could put a request in the note, ask folks to show a little respect, but that’d just encourage them in the end.

Death Row in San Quentin is the color of old puke brown? green? what does old puke look like?, and even though this is springtime in California there’s a chill here that gets right into your bones. The little kerosene heater in this room does what it can, but the cold still gets bad enough some nights to take one’s mind off what lies at the end of that hall. Never saw the gas chamber myself, but one of the guards, forget his name, the one with that tadpole-shaped scar over his eye, described it well enough.Question of style, but I would write this last sentence as "Never saw the gas chamber myself, but one of the guards—forget his name, the one with that tadpole-shaped scar over his eye—described it well enough. Strap you to the bed, turn the nozzle. You take a few breaths and then you don’t take any more.

I disagree with the sentence but I can’t deny the crime. I slit that woman’s throat, sure enough, and the Devil himself couldn’t have found me an alibi. When I came to and the fire in my chest died down, she was at my feet with a bright red smile under her chin and I was bloodsoaked all down my front. “You killed her,” someone shouted. I answered, “What?”

After a misadventure like that you’re better off just staying quiet and letting the law take you to whatever hole you’re destined for, but I’m still bothered some by that trial. How the prosecutor argued that the dearly deceased Miz Guthrie’s boardinghouse was a hive of drinking, whoring, and gambling, and that it just rankled my puritanical soul something terrible. If it weren’t so dark in here then I would happily flip this scrap of paper over and write that, contrary to what some lawyer may say, I have never been against a drink, a whore, or a bet—if anything, I was a little too fond of all three.

So now they’re fixing to fill my lungs with poison. Well, let me save you boys the trouble. This is a trick I learned from a one-toothed abuelito down in Santa Fe. Here’s a broom I got off one of the guards—a man should keep his cell tidy, after all. Here’s a dime. Here’s a pack of cards. Here’s me screwing this cotleg off with that coin and putting it ever so gentle to the side. Here’s the whispery little sound of every one of these redbacks getting ripped up into confetti—the red parts, especially, that’s what I was told, it’s the red ink that holds the secret. That shriveled-up wetback said that he learned this during his time in the Rurales, who knows if it’s true. I sure hope it works. I’ll look awful foolish otherwise. I really like the buildup in this paragraph, the series of "here's..." sentences describing the makeshift suicide weapon.

I am against the death penalty, though not so much in principle as—excuse me—execution. I’ve known some rough gentlemen, and God knows their wives at least would be much happier if they were gone, but to assign a date and time to a man’s death lessens him in ways that he does not deserve. There’s no notes scratched into these walls revealing the thoughts of men who’ve slept here before, I’ve checked time and again, but over the last several days I still imagine how many before me shivered in that cot at night, silently hollering for a God that won’t answer. Which brings to mind questions of what awaits himyou after that last breath, and how it will feel to expire with a crowd of people on the other side of the glass, watching himyou like a creature in a cage. Personally I can’t help but feel a touch of moral outrage, even despite my crimes, at bearing witness in such a manner. Not six months ago I saw two children cooking a rat for dinner. Haven’t you people got anything better to do?

If I sneeze right now then these bits of playing card will blow every which-a-way and I’ll never gather them up in this dark. I have too much imagination.

If I had the time and the paper I would explain to them. It’s this burning in my chest that has always been my problem. Sometimes it gets so hot and I need to let it out. When I was just a boy I kicked a dog to death for barking too much and stomped its neck as it lay there in the dust;a period would work here just as well as a semicolon, I think I still hear the crunch in my dreams. It’s why I can’t stay with a woman for more than a week, why I couldn’t stay in that boardinghouse without doing something terribly drastic. All that noise. It just gets so loud. I feel as though I’ll burst into flame inside. Which piece was left out, I wonder, during the construction of my soul.? Which card is missing from this deck. ?

These cards won’t get any more shredded. Next step, plug up the cotleg with the broom handle. Then, gather up the pile—drat it all, where’d it go—and empty the shreds into the leg. In this light they look like bits of cut glass, catching the moonlight. Add one handful of toilet water and a little heat, and this witch’s brew will come thundering out of the leg like two barrels of buckshot. What cause that old man had to dream up such a weapon will forever be one of the great mysteries of our time.

I’ve left the note on the cot. There are no excuses and no answers. It reads, “Do not blame my death on anyone because I fixed everything myself. I never give up as long as I am living and have a chance, but this is the end.” Translation: take your gas and choke on it, you hapless, blameless, cold-hearted people. I’m placing myself somewhere none of you can reach. Maybe after this hole gets put in me, the terrible heat around my ribs will be loosed and warm this deathroom for good.

The cotleg’s firm and snug against the kerosene heater and I’ve huddled in close. A condemned man, no friends, no children I know of—this is how they’ll remember me. The hell with it. Get into the spirit of things. You called my bluff, folks. Time to cash out. Guess you can call this the dead man’s hand. Boy, hear that steam whistle. If you ask me, the game was fixed all along, but I never did learn the rules. Cotleg’s turning cherry-red, queen-of-hearts red. Straight flush. Full house. Two pair. Ace high. Ah, God, I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.

As I said before, I can picture this fellow sitting in his cell, thinking the last thoughts of his life. Only a few suggestions and most of them are stylistic. The last sentiment, about wanting to live, didn't really fit with the mentality of a person cheating death row, but then again, maybe it does. Overall I really enjoyed this piece and think it's the best of the bunch. My opinion.

Phil Moscowitz fucked around with this message at Jun 5, 2013 around 14:42

I hope I am not coming across as some sort of lazy rear end in a top hat. A lot of the stories I was given to judge were written by very good writers, and I am legitimately at a loss for negatives, probably, because I have a bad eye for this sort of thing. Looks like me and Nubile Hillock are gonna have a brawl on our hands.

Well, I did this on purpose so that you would be reading good writers and hopefully looking at their work as more than just a "reader" and taking note of things they did that made their writing good. I wanted you to really take it in, line by line. I'm glad you are finding some critical things to say about their work as well, because nobody is perfect and these are fast stories.

I hope it's been an educational experience for you. You should also read and critique some of the others. The list I sent you was just so everybody would get a crit; I want you to keep looking and judging.

“Honey”, Ellen said as she closed the door with her foot. “I’m home.” The house had the particular cool silence of emptiness. “Oh, that’s right,” she said. “I live alone.”

She locked the door behind her and tossed her keys and phone into the wire basket by the front door. Then, yawning, she walked down the corridor, opened the kitchen door and lifted the heavy bags onto the bench. The eggs were on top of the first bag. She took them out, then paused. There was a sound coming from the other end of the empty house. Must have left a window open when I went out, she thought. Leaving the bags, she walked out of the kitchen to shut it.

Blocking the light coming from the spare bedroom was a bulky man wearing a dirty hoodie. He had something clutched in his hand. It took a moment for her to recognise him.

“Kevin,” she said. “You can’t be here. Kevin, the Judge said you had to stay—“ Kevin pulled the rags off the knife and she screamed. He took a step towards her, another. The knife was shaking as he held it out towards her.

“Shut up. Shut up bitch.” He lunged with the knife, coming short. Everything seemed to glisten with unreality for Ellen. Her heart was pounding, ears dense and clogged with blood. She stumbled back, hit the wall and he stopped too, breathing heavily.

“Kevin,” she said. “You don’t have to do this. Just go. I won’t say—“ He stabbed for her again, coming closer this time and she hurled herself sideways. The knife, an ugly serrated thing, cut a deep trench in the wall. Ellen’s momentum carried her through the open kitchen door and she sprawled on the white linoleum. She scrabbled herself back towards the door, kicked at it. It slammed shut with a cracking thud and she scrambled to her feet, looking for a weapon.

When the door opened she was ready, arm back, ready to throw. The cast iron pan spun through the air, hit Kevin in the face. He yelled and dropped the knife. Ellen reached up to the knife rack, pulled down a heavy German carving knife. The balance felt good in her hands. Tears were hot on her cheeks and her hand was shaking. She had a brief flash of the knife going into him, hot blood spurting out.

“I will. I will stab you. loving get out. loving GET.”

He was bleeding from the face. He touched it, then looked at his fingers dubiously. “You threw a frying pan at me.”

Ellen didn’t realize the scream was coming until it had already left her mouth. “GET THE gently caress OUT OF HERE”

He nodded absently, as if she’d reminded him to get some milk on the way home, then turned back down the corridor towards the open window. He seemed to remember something halfway and stooped down for his knife. She took two quick steps, her own knife held at arms length towards him. He held up his hands, stood back up. She followed him, legs shaky, as he stumbled down the hall.

The spare bedroom, which had been his den when they’d lived together, was sparse. The window was open, latch cracked out by a crowbar that was sitting on the windowsill. Ellen looked around the room, saw a huge mound of poo poo on the bed cover. It was still steaming. She gazed at it a moment in fascinated horror. Her mouth curled and she looked back at Kevin. He was already swinging the crowbar, and it took her just above the ear. A flash of painful light shot through her head and her head slammed against the door. As she slumped she felt him fumble for the knife, pull it out of her hands, toss it away. “No. No, no,” she mumbled. He pressed the crowbar against her throat. Through dimming eyes she saw his face. He was crying.

dreadmojo fucked around with this message at Oct 27, 2013 around 11:34

After a delightful few days reading nearly 30,000 words of death and mayhem, we have a winner! Oxxidation, congratulations. Your entry felt the least forced and really made me feel like I understood what was going through the mind of a deadman as he said his final goodbye.

Everybody did a good rule of not writing about clothes, which I was grateful for. If I have to read about one more pair of panties barely covering a fully-erect penis I may just lose it. However, you all did a less than stellar job of not writing about the SUN. It’s not even that big, relative to other stars. Why do you all love it so much?

Honorable mention goes to Sitting Here, whose hosed up tale made me get a boner and type up a craigslist ad. Most improved award goes to Magnificient7, who managed to pull his head out of his rear end only to find ten people screaming advice into his poo poo-covered face, he managed to follow some of it.

There were two stories that deserved the losertar this week, but Ceighk’s is this week’s loser, because his tale of Old Man Anorexia and Least Effective Friend Ever was an insult to people dying. Like, the tornados in Oklahoma were caused by all the dead people spinning in their graves so fast that it created a vortex. Max22, thank Ceighk for saving your rear end by buying him a DVD of the movie 300, so he can enjoy more stupid greek men.

Thanks to Martello and JonasSalk for helping judge and crit, and special thanks to Chillmatic for doing a smash-up job on his critskrieg.

Instead of using the actual prompt, write a CYOA chapter for this IDR fanfic thread in GiP. If you don't know anything about GiP forums superstar, tranny-hater/lover, and SOF Marine faker IDR (you don't) read this thread to get caught up.

I will personally judge all IDR fanfic entries. Winning the bonus option doesn't win you the week, but it does get you a new avatar or plat depending on preference, paid for by me.

Ah, Jesus, this is the worst part of winning. Look, if anyone wants to substitute for me again for a prompt they can go right ahead, I've got so much work on my plate right now all I do is come home and collapse.

The man was stunningly well dressed. He had a smart looking jacket, and a really neat looking cape, the lining of which was shimmering and sparkling in more than Oriental splendour, which is a great deal of splendour indeed, just ask Kipling.

Dibs!

Old Testament Studies with Chairchucker.

Hello Thunderdome. An observation I've made over some past 'domes, is that 'domers love them some Biblically inspired prose sometimes, but they seem to be stuck on the New Testament. Which is a shame because frankly the Old Testament has some way cool stories of people getting invaded and cut into small pieces or whatever. So this week, we're going to be plagiarising getting inspiration from the part of the Bible that Jews also think is cool.

Just inspiration though. No Biblical characters allowed in any of your stories.

And to make doubly sure, genre is 'sci-fi'. (The broad definition that says if it has any futuristic crap in it, it counts as sci-fi.) And if you try to write Christ figure in space, God help you.

Once you sign up, I will personally assign you a passage of the Bible (with link to an easy to find version of it) to rip off mine for inspiration.

Sign ups close 2300 (11 pm) Friday AUSTRALIAN EASTERN STANDARD TIME. That's +10 GMT so work it out you jerks, I always have to work out your heathen timezones.
Submissions close 12 noon on Monday, also AEST.